Vanessa Laine is a college student and aspiring musician. She's got the look and she's got the voice. The only thing that's stopping her is her stage fright...and an opportunity. But opportunity knocks when pop-punk band, The Velocity, holds auditions for a new lead singer at the restaurant that Vanessa works at. Getting in was the easy part. Surviving as the only girl in the band is the hard part. Can she do it?

Delaney Escott lives in a world where popularity reigns supreme. If you want to be noticed, social status is everything. The government is run by the Superiors: a very exclusive group of individuals who are virtually flawless. They are smarter than us and stronger than us, and to join their ranks is the highest honor. The Superiors pay an annual visit to the top schools in the nation and evaluate the students, choosing one boy and one girl - the most Popular in the school - to go the Capitol and train for Superiority. Delaney thinks that she's the only one indifferent to (and perhaps even suspicious of) the Superiors, until Caleb Payne, the most popular boy in school, approaches her with a request. He has a task for her, one that he believes she is uniquely capable of completing. And as she helps him, Delaney discovers that the government is hiding many secrets - and that the truth of the Superiors is far from what people believe it to be. [Watty Awards 2012 Winner, Science-Fiction: On the Rise]